Findingflow
BBC Music Magazine|October 2022
With a new Warner Classics recording contract and a year-long residency at London's Southbank Centre to his name, Abel Selaocoe's star is in the ascendant. But as the South African cellist tells Charlotte Smith, he has a higher mission - to bridge the divide between African and Western music
Charlotte Smith
Findingflow

Home is where the heart is' - it's a frequently quoted phrase, familiar since ancient times in one form or another and made popular in literature and song throughout the last few centuries across the English-speaking world. For Abel Selaocoe, however, the expression rings truer than most. Although the South African cellist now calls Manchester 'home', his debut album for Warner Classics - Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae) - poses questions beyond simple geography. It is, he tells me, 'an exploration of refuge: the word "refuge" has a bit of stigma to it, but it's actually a universal concept. Finding your home is about accessing those places that nourish you. It's not simply about being comfortable, but about feeling that you are progressing, that you are cared for and that you are surrounded by collective wisdom that surpasses your own. Seeking refuge is about finding a place of empowerment.

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Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
BBC Music Magazine

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Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.

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Composer of the month - Bohuslav Martinů - Though the Czech absorbed many influences from his exile abroad, his colourful music was always distinctively his own
BBC Music Magazine

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Symphonies Beside the Sea- Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction
BBC Music Magazine

Symphonies Beside the Sea- Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction

Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction. It's a dimension of music-making that once was integral to many a British holiday experience, yet now has all but vanished. The tide went out, you might say, on the professional seaside (or pier, or spa) orchestra many decades ago. In their glory days, though - perhaps a quarter-century on either side of 1900-these ensembles were everywhere, from Bridlington to Eastbourne, New Brighton to Worthing, Blackpool to Bexhill-on-Sea, Cleethorpes to Brighton... the list is astonishing.

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Richard Morrison- Do Classical Works About Mortality Reveal More To Us As We Get Older? Is it inevitably true that, as we journey through the decades, we are better able to interpret or empathise with a profoundly death-obsessed masterpiece such as Schubert's Winterreise?
BBC Music Magazine

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Do Notes Win Votes? - There are multi-dimensional ways that music is used by political campaigners and their supporters today.
BBC Music Magazine

Do Notes Win Votes? - There are multi-dimensional ways that music is used by political campaigners and their supporters today.

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Västra Karup Sweden
BBC Music Magazine

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BBC Music Magazine

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BBC Music Magazine

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BBC Music Magazine

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BBC Music Magazine

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